“I respect and admire the people I work with so much,” Francona said. “I’m so happy because there’s been a lot of good people here that deserve this. The only way we can accomplish this is by doing it together. And we did. We pulled it off.”

Ubaldo Jimenez tied a career high with 13 strikeouts. Nick Swisher homered in the first inning for the Indians, who ended the regular season with 10 straight wins. In the locker room after Sunday’s game, Swisher said it was a team effort:

“We finished up so strong, man,” Swisher said. “This is what it’s all about, man. Look at this, everybody’s high five-ing. We got champagne. We got it all, man. This is what it’s all about, y’all.”

Indians CEO Paul Dolan says he believed the team’s efforts in the off season to sign Swisher and Michael Bourn would pay off.

“Frankly, a lot of the players have been here for a while, who finally kind of had a stage to show what they could do,” Dolan said. “We have had a lot of talent in this organization. We added to it. With the right leadership, we get a day like today.”

Cleveland will host Tampa Bay or Texas in the one-game AL wild card playoff on Wednesday night at Progressive Field. Rookie right-hander Danny Salazar (2-3, 3.12 ERA) will start for the Indians. Individual tickets for the game are sold out.

Baseball wasn’t the only sport in town this weekend, though. Many fans were surprised by another victory by the Browns. Brian Hoyer threw two touchdown passes in his first start at home to lead the Browns to a 17-6 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. In his second start in place of injured Brandon Weeden, Hoyer finished with more than 250 yards. Hoyer, a Cleveland St. Ignatius grad, says it was a great feeling.

“We talked about it a million times,” Hoyer said. “It’s cool to play in front of the hometown crowd in this stadium, somewhere where I grew up 15 minutes from. And obviously it’s a good day because the Tribe was winning, too. So, it’s fun.”

Hoyer says the team won’t have much time to savor the victory. They have to get ready for Thursday night’s game against Buffalo.

“It’s a quick turnaround,” Hoyer said. “We gotta get focused on that and move on from this win and get ready because Buffalo’s a good team. I know they were close with Baltimore, so that kind of tells you what kind of team they are. We got to turn the focus around real quick on them.”